Monday, October 24, 2011

Playmates and Losers

We aren’t soul mates:
I am no princess.
You’re no knight for me.
This is the real world;
But I’m an imaginative girl
And you’re a real boy.  

We aren’t making a home
But it sure is fun to pretend.
We inhabit the same space,
We don’t becoming a family.
But we put our keys on the same counter,
And they make a suggestive fallacy.

We aren’t best friends anymore,
Not like we were when you called every day.
I don’t think about all the places we went unless I’m there now.
I don’t miss your cats or your car.
Now I just cling closer to my own.
And when you call, I don’t always answer-
But I always say I miss you.

We aren’t in love,
Like they all think we are.
You still thank her for my number she gave you.
We won’t co-objectify at that party he has us to.
Your name brings on no nervousness for me,
But I blush for them when they whisper it;
And we play so well together.


The winter is coming.
Everything will die-
Like I learned in narrative patterns.
But I’ll tell you we should go swimming this December.
I’ll replace all your flannel with cotton plaid this February.
I will even suggest that we go out and live-
Because I know you will say
 “let’s not and say we did”
And that is what we will do because you said so.

We won’t ever change relationship statuses.
We won’t declare a loyalty.
We won’t hang up pictures of ourselves on the walls.
But we will know that they exist.
Maybe, I’ll put them in a frame
And you will put them in your wallet.
That’ll be fine,
As long as we don’t tell each other.
Because that is too real for us,
And this is just a game we play. 

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

homeless

I’ve been feeling pretty homeless.
                There is always somewhere for me to sleep. I have blankets encased with my scent and dripping with ink from the pens I fall asleep gripping. I have a mailing address. I have rent to pay. I have my dad’s dogs and my mom’s cat. I’ve got three driveways I can always pull into. My name is printed on a gas bill. My desk is making my mom a great coffee table, and my dad’s dining room buffet is serving me well as a desk. I have a rug on a floor that she tells her party guests is mine, and some clothes I’ve never worn on the floor of a room he calls mine. I have a key to two buildings. I have three sets of walls I made into canvases and then abandoned. I have a canopy underneath a bed I don’t sleep in. Pictures in a frame at the bottom of a box. Candles on a counter next to a lighter that isn’t mine. They call a piece of their own lives and homes mine. I keep my pieces; the people I’ve taken and the things I’ve given. I haven’t called any house mine in a long time though.
                I have a car. I do in the sense that I have insurance and a title in the glove box at least. I have my ipod plugged into auxiliary and my presets programmed into the fading green 1-6 on the radio I didn’t buy. I have my “802” and my “Where there is a witch there is a way” bumperstickers on its backside. My makeup fills the console. My bank receipts litter the ashtray. I got the leopard print steering wheel cover and I bought three cotton candy car fresheners. I make a payment every month, and that SUV becomes a little bit more mine every time. I paid to get that leak fixed by myself.  I pay for the gas. But, I only paid for half the brand new brakes. There are four keys in circulation, and I only have one of them. Its title isn’t in my name. I don’t own a damn bumper or headlights yet. That beautiful black piece of metal is the most personal commodity I know, and I can’t yet claim.
                He can’t be my home anymore either. Perfection like that can’t last long enough to become familiar. It’s too bad that I can’t imagine his face in the backseat where we sat together enough times to bring him back there. I can’t ignore everyone in my phone for long enough to pretend he’s calling to call me all those names I love to be called. Driving by his house won’t bring him down that fire escape to my passenger’s side door the way it used to. Saying “hey” isn’t an invitation to argue philosophy and theorize lust like it used to imply. Pictures of us aren’t screensavers and profile pictures now in this state of vagabondage, they’re just in frames at the bottom of a box somewhere foreign to me. Somehow we’ve become too distanced to find our way back to each other- and I wonder if he has felt as lost as I have.  Listening to his Bob Dylan, and learning Springsteen lyrics won’t do any good from where we are now. No, keeping up on my poetry and my guitar enthusiasm won’t bring him home or put those pictures back up on our walls.
                My heart has nowhere to cover up and close its eyes anymore. I don’t get your goodnights. I don’t need them to be safe, I don’t need them to fall asleep; it just doesn’t feel like home without them. I miss reading that you love me. I miss hearing you were going to bed wherever you may have been sleeping. I miss taking you for granted. I hate how it feels to fall asleep anywhere, knowing you haven’t left a metaphoric porch light on for me somewhere. Keeps me tired heart up, driving in the dangers that come from the dark looking for some place that doesn’t exist as it once did. I can’t settle down without your goodnights. I’m not at home if you’re not waiting for me. If youre not leaving the light on, if youre not loving me, then I don’t know where I belong.
There is a car in the driveway of a house where I sleep at night. There isn’t a front porch light like you left on, but someone else’s candle sits lit on the counter when I come in. It isn’t the house where you loved me. It isn’t the home where I fell for him. I don’t have my desk, I don’t have my rug. I don’t have the title to that car and I don’t have the only key. I’m leaving the doors unlocked, in case someone wants to break in to get me. I am walking in the dark to a bed that doesn’t feel right. I am kicking a box of pictures and frames across the floor as I do so. I’ll try to sleep, but my heart is a little restless and I’m not very comfortable here. I am feeling pretty homeless. 

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Forever

Forever is a word we can't promise. A distance we can't fathom. A length we can't stretch.  A dream we've all had. A place we have never seen. A sound we have never heard. 
A -something more- we all have to believe in. 

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Dry

Dry

You made it through middle school:
Took my razors blades and scissors;
Gave me hugs and mascara instead.
You insisted on Christmas carols as a family
You forgave my every lie.
You dressed me pretty for my proms
And held me when he made me cry.

You glued me together when I was broken.  
You forced me up off the floor at my worst.
You were my confidence.
You were my nature rides-
And all my right turns.
You were my voice of reason.
And I underappreciated the drought-
Oh, because I’m getting sick in the floods  this season.

Tell Jack that I hate him.
Mama send Jose home.
 Let go of your Cabana Boy,
Pour out the Patron.
Push the Captain overboard.
Remy Martin’s tides are pulling you down
You getting sick soaking with Jameson and Beam
And if you don’t dry up soon, oh Mama, you’ll drown.

You’re not making it through this fall
You’re slipping on an icy beach.
Your heart is freezing up and slowing down.
Your leaves and petals and drooping and falling away,
But you just keeping watering them Mama-
Yeah, you feed that need every day.

I can’t glue you together but you surely are broken.
I can’t force dead weight off the floor.
I can’t keep your condition in confidence.
I can’t come along for your dangerous rides-
My stomach won’t take the twists and turns.
I can’t give more chances or listen to your demented reason.
Oh, how I underestimated all those dry springs
Because I am falling apart this season.


Tell Jack that I hate him.
Mama send Jose home.
 Let go of your Cabana Boy,
Pour out the Patron.
Push the Captain overboard.
Remy Martin’s tides are pulling you down
You getting sick soaking with Jameson and Beam
And if you don’t dry up soon, oh Mama, you’ll drown.

Mama come back inside,
Let’s take back the home you made me.
I’m standing in the rain pleading here with you,
And it has to be my last try.
It’s time to come in out of this muddy water,
let's go back to being warm, safe and dry. 

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Currrrl

it isn't easy to get my hair to curl. it is expensive, careful and tedious work. 
I can never never wash, rinse and repeat. Wash and then immediately condition. 
I can never put more than four products in at once. John Frieda root to tip and John Freida Curl Definition Creme are both a a must. I am left with little space to decided between Garnier Frutise's goopy green gel (that would be my favorite if it didn't give me that crunchy texture) and whatever Redken I was convinced to buy last.
Then I have to let it dry just enough to make sure my curls are smooth and defined, not crinkled and knotted. Otherwise, i have to wet and re-scrunch guessing blindly how much product was retained. 
Then with an acceptable partial dry i argon oil the ends and my right to touch is revoked for the entirety of the day. 
The cost of beauty. 

Friday, October 7, 2011

Ode to the Beltline

Ode to the Beltline
Once I raced you there. I had only had my car a couple of days, and you were almost ready to leave your bike for a semester at school, and we raced there. It was fifteen minutes or so before I had to be at work, and my hair was up, my collar was popped. The radio was off and the windows were down. I could hear your engine behind me, in front of me, beside me, and I could feel you sneering through the tinted plexi-glass of your “badass” helmet. You won.
Once I decided to always drive all the way down. Decided to drive down past the exit for North Ave Beaches and under the Colchester bridge. I know that it’s out of my way, that in reality it is a waste of gas and a cause for pollution, but I do it every time. I always go all the way down. You told me it was faster once and even though I know that is not true I still believed you. I still go that way. I still take the long way home, no matter how tired I am or where I am coming from or where that little red lever is dancing over that ominous “E” on my dash. I go all the way to that light at the end every time.
Once I rode there with your mom. The first time I was out so late I couldn’t just walk back or call my mom. I rode down with your mom, to the North Ave Beaches exit ramp and we talked about the weather and how quickly fall was coming and how early it was getting dark. She and I were all alone, both covering up our secrets and telling ourselves our reasons at fifty miles an hour. She didn’t want to think that you and I are a different breed of people, she didn’t want to know that even though there are only four miles between your house and mine we live in completely different worlds. She didn’t really want to leave her bold and stylish South End home for another one of those off-white paneled house on the other side of that road.
Once I fell in love with you. Then again, and again and again. And once you became so comfortable, and so exciting all at the same time, that you became my tires kissing the yellow line, at fifty miles an hour. 

Monday, October 3, 2011

She Isn't

She Isn't


She isn’t a beautiful girl, and she knows that. She hasn’t been since that family photo where she’s three; ringlets in her hair, gap in her teeth, and the Tazmanian Devil on a shirt that clearly isn’t hers. She hasn’t grown as much as expected since then. She has gained too much weight since then. Her teeth have gathered some stains, her hair won’t curl like that no matter what she pays, and that blue in her eyes has faded and softened with age. She knows she isn’t a beautiful girl.
She isn’t a brilliant girl, and she knows that. She didn’t manage an 1800 on her SAT. She failed two AP tests. She is lazy about homework and likely to be late. She asks obvious questions. She misspells grammer and defanitely. She was the best at poetry once, for a whole two minutes, but the glory was short lived. She comma splices even after she is taught the rules. She lacks common sense. She didn’t take precal in high school. She barely passed a physics class. Sometimes she says insensitive things, but it’s because she’s stupid, not because she’s cruel. She misuses words, and incorrectly conjugates verbs, when she talks too. She really isn’t brilliant, and she knows that.
She isn’t strong, and she knows that. She falls down and she always needs help up. Sometimes she needs help to carry her own. She drops pitchers of juice on the floor if she carries too many. She can’t ride her bike up that same hill she always forgets to take her E-brake off when she backs down it in her car. She cries when she gets yelled at. She cries when she has to say good-bye. She cries when she sees commercials for the Humane Society. She bruises easy. She calls her mom when she gets lost instead of looking at a map. She goes for ice cream instead of tutoring when she fails a test. She can’t be alone for a day at a time. She cries when she can’t bike all the way up that hill. She is not a strong girl and she knows it.
She isn’t your girl either. Not your girlfriend. Not your best friend. Not your baby. Not your fling. Not your someone special. Not your significant other. Not your other half. Not your mother. Not your little sister. Not your ride home. Not your lab partner. Not your turn around and smile at the girl three rows back and to the left. Not your property in all the ways she wishes to belong to someone. She isn’t your girl, and everyone knows that.
She isn’t beautiful. She isn’t strong or brilliant either. Don’t waste a second trying to fix her; she isn’t yours to change.